My K11 Tempest

[SK193]

Hi everyone. I've gradually been modifying my car over the last few months so I thought I'd start a blog to post any updates of anything I do to it.

It was bought a few years ago with a bit of crash damage but was fully repaired and became my learning car, and I even passed my test in it too. I left it standard for the first year but quickly got bitten by the modifying bug and since haven't been able to leave it alone.

Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of it from when it was bought or the damage, but the first photo I have is how it looked after it was repaired and put on the road.

The first changes were the standard wheels being swapped for 15” black multispoke alloys from one of my dads cars (I think they were off an MX5), fitting a richbrook gear knob & gaiter and a good service where I put in a K&N panel filter.

I'll put up some more updates soon.

 

[MikeyRocks]

Looking very nice dude

 

[SK193]

Next little thing I changed was replacing the grill with a black one without the ugly chrome nostril pieces which made a nice difference to the look.

(The marks on the bonnet are just dirt from the old grill, not the paint)

I also painted the badge black to match, fitted a sunstrip and colour coded my doorhandles as they were starting to fade badly.

 

[SK193]

Decided to tidy up the back a bit with some de-badging, and got my windows tinted

Gave it a going over with some AutoGlym paint renovator to get the rest of the badge glue off, and a much needed wash. The different camera makes the colour look brighter than it is.

 

[Guy]

Looks fantastic mate, keep it up (Y).

 

[johnbr6]

keep up the good work buddy, nice and clean look to it (Y) only things id do now is maybe blacken the insides of the headlights and a nice exhaust tip? but pretty much finished on the outside imo!!!

 

[SK193]

Thanks guys!

john - I was thinking of doing the headlights but i'm going to put flyeyes on the front and back instead. I really want an exhaust but not too sure, my insurance is high enough atm ):
Is there anywhere that does decent back boxes, that aren't like the huge loud boyracer ones? I quite like the 2.5/3" Sportex ones.

 

[SK193]

Nothing major really, just got myself some stickers to add to the back window. When I saw the Built Not Bought one, I thought it was very appropriate as when the car was being repaired from its crash damage it had to be practically rebuilt as almost everything was taken out/off.

My little Domo-kun and Richbrook tax disc holder. The corner of my windscreen has a little bit of water stuck between it, but strangely i've seen the exact same thing on my dads Micra and on a couple of others around town. Has this happened to anyone elses at all?

Also de-wipered it too, and sprayed a blanking grommet to cover the hole. I'll get the hole properly smoothed over and painted at some point. I couldn't resist getting the little turbo snail as well

 

[camoxodka]

really nice work can i ask were do you get all these stickers from

 

[andy]

really nice work can i ask were do you get all these stickers from

try typing jdm stickers on ebay gets loads of results :grinning:

 

[andy]

very nice car i very much like it ..........get it waz oiled if it aint already....if a car ever needed lowering abit this 1 certainly does

 

[SK193]

andy is right, I got them off ebay, if you search through the pages you can find some good ones in there.
Thank you. Yeah, that's next up actually, getting new shocks and lowering springs

 

[SK193]

I decided to take a trip to a scrapyard to see what I could find lying around, and came back with a polo splitter and was going to get a pre-facelift tailgate handle but by the time i'd got the splitter off they'd moved the other micra to the top of another pile.

Also got some smoked side repeaters too as the orange ones looked out of place with all the grey/black, and found a nice spot for some photos

 

[karlj]

Looks good, just need to lose the arch gap :laugh:

 

[SK193]

Thanks. Yeah that's next on the to do list, start to get altitude sickness after driving this around for a while haha :laugh:

 

[Dougyledds]

Awesome mate, love it!
really clean (Y)

 

[peposhi]

hi, mate
car looks lovely!

'bout the flyeyes kit... looks fantastic, but if you do you headlights too it will reduce your visibility significantly. Unless you don't drive in the dark hours I tried it myself and learned it the hard way
but on other side it looks soo cool!

 

[peposhi]

Can you not just remove/replace the orange thing in your headlights... It will be perfect
Flyeye's Kit for the rear and it'll be perfect (Y)

 

[SK193]

Thanks, i'll remove the side bumpstrips at some point too, to make it look smoother

peposhi - Thank you. I might just get the lightest grey ones so that they don't reduce the visibility too much, but I put new laser blue headlight bulbs in the other week and they've made an improvement so I guess it'll just be like going back to standard bulbs

 

[SK193]

I was thinking of painting the chrome headlight surround bits but I'd rather the flyeyes to make the whole unit blend in with the colour/style of the car better.
What colour flyeyes did you use on your headlights? I know there's about 6 variants of grey and 2 blacks

 

[peposhi]

The prob is not the color of the kit. It's the construction of the kit itself - a vinyl sheet with holes in it:

It reduces the visibility, cause it covers 50% of the headlight surface. I used black, the darkest shade. It look nuts, but unfortunately I had to remove it as I felt like blind any time I drove in the late or early hours.
Kept the rears though and love it

It's good to try though, the kit is at very reasonable price and you wouldn't brake the bank

Good luck with it!(Y)

 

[peposhi]

As for the headlight bulbs - try Osram Nightbreaker Plus - you'd feel like you've washed your windscreen after an off road drive in a mud :laugh:

 

[SK193]

I think I may try the lighter shade of black or a mid grey, they're cheap enough anyway so if I don't like them I haven't lost much. I really like them on your rear lights though, and your splitter (Y)
I'd never heard of them before but just searched them and they look quite good

 

[peposhi]

Yes, price is very reasonable and worth to try.
Looking forward to see how it went (Y)(Y)

 

[SK193]

After a long enough wait, I finally got all my suspension bits together When I ordered my Whiteline Panhard Rod, I waited for 2 weeks and was getting a bit impatient, so I decided to ring the online store I got it from and they said it was being sent over from Australia and that it would take at least another 6 weeks so I decided to cancel my order and get a refund. Instead, I rang up Matthew Humphris, and although it cost quite a bit more, it was sent out the same day and arrived within 2 days so it was worth it in the end

Here are the final products: KYB Shocks, P.I 35mm Lowering Springs & Whiteline Adjustable Panhard Rod. (It may look as if some bits are missing, but when I took the photo 1 spring was being put onto the shock haha)

Even though it was only a 35mm drop I was quite pleased with the outcome. It's got the front close enough to the ground for now, as you can't go 200 yards around here without coming across speed bumps or crater sized potholes.

 

[SK193]

Just a small update for now:

I got a bit bored and had a free stickerbomb sheet lying around so had a go at doing the fuel flap.

And got a set of wind deflectors to add on too. (the marks are from the reflection, not on the car)

After the suspension had settled it looked a bit lower than it was, but it seemed to have messed with the steering a bit as when I was driving straight, the steering wheel had moved off centre and was pointing a few degrees to the left.
I decided to take it to my local garage to have the tracking done, and afterwards it did feel like it handled slightly better but the steering wheel angle had got worse :/ One thing I noticed when they were doing the alignment though was that they never clamped the steering wheel straight before doing it. Could this have been why it got worse? I've always thought they had to clamp the wheel before doing any alterations.

 

[mjtm]

yes take it back to them get them to do it again

 

[SK193]

Thank you, i'm going to get it done again soon but this time i'll take it to a better garage where I know they do them properly.

 

[SK193]

Haven't done a lot to it lately, it's been too cold and not light for very long but I thought i'd get creative and try spraying some bits and pieces. I tried doing a black with a blue mist look, as the inside is already a similar colour and eventually will be all black and blue.
Personally I thought they turned out quite well for my first attempt

Air Box - Before:

Mid-paint:

Finished item:

Instrument surround - Before:

Instrument, door handle & handbrake surround:

The finished items:

The blue isn't very visible as it was taken on a phone camera but it's a mist effect all over. I'll post better pictures and a few more painted bits up soon.

 

[djtweaker]

looks nice

 

[Ulrich C]

Do you have a picture of your interior? Car looks good!

 

[SK193]

Thank you. I'll get a picture of the interior soon, as there may be a few new additions coming soon too

 

[Barker]

Looks great mate really like it however 45mm may have looked a bit better looks good though and not ricey

Anyone got a pic of the tail lights on with fly eyes?

 

[SK193]

The latest addition to the interior:

I may have to do some modifying to get it to fit right as the boss is slightly short of fitting onto the steering spline, I'll update with a picture when it's fitted along with the rest of the interior bits which are currently being painted

 

[SK193]

Looks great mate really like it however 45mm may have looked a bit better looks good though and not ricey

Anyone got a pic of the tail lights on with fly eyes?

Thank you I may get some 50mm springs at some point as I would like it lower than it is at the moment.

Peposhi's car has fly eyes on the rear lights, I think they were done in dark black.

 

[krisism]

hello mate, lovely lookin k11! mine has them stupid chrome bits around the grill, how did you get them off? did they come off with the grill or did you have to take them off a certain way?

 

[davey1991]

You paint them or they leave a very nasty looking hole.

 

[KoniVibe]

Great project, one of the nicest facelift micra's i've come across, love the stealth look grey/black, lovely alloys. How much work was it to get the polo front splitter to fit? Planning on doing any engine work?

 

[hoodedreeper]

Very nice! Keep up the great work!

 

[SK193]

hello mate, lovely lookin k11! mine has them stupid chrome bits around the grill, how did you get them off? did they come off with the grill or did you have to take them off a certain way?

Thank you. I just removed the whole grill piece, they just unclip/undo from the inside and if you want you can take the chrome piece off separately, but I bought new black grill pieces from ebay.

Great project, one of the nicest facelift micra's i've come across, love the stealth look grey/black, lovely alloys. How much work was it to get the polo front splitter to fit? Planning on doing any engine work?

Thanks I haven't seen many modified facelifts around, and the mean/stealthy look is what I was aiming for too lol. I'd love to change the wheels actually, was thinking of Rota Grid style wheels. It fitted quite easily tbh, went straight on with some self tapping screws through the existing Polo mounting holes. Yeah, i'm thinking of getting an induction kit, exhaust system and possibly 1.3 cams.

 

[SK193]

Very nice! Keep up the great work!

Thank you! Well done on the magazine features btw, your Micra project is what got me started on mine lol (Y)

 

[Harlen]

Definitely fit some 1.3 cams - Seriously cheap mod with a huge gain. My 1.0L drove like a totally different car with them. The power band feels sooooo much better.

As others have said though, I really do like this. I'm not usually a big fan of the facelift models but this looks bang on.

 

[krisism]

yeah i know the grills just clip out mate but its the chrome bit im stuck with how did you go about gettin it off? the same way you would if you were debadging? did it leave a hole? or was it just dirty?

 

[SK193]

Definitely fit some 1.3 cams - Seriously cheap mod with a huge gain. My 1.0L drove like a totally different car with them. The power band feels sooooo much better.
As others have said though, I really do like this. I'm not usually a big fan of the facelift models but this looks bang on.

Yeah i've heard about it being a good cheap mod. Thanks again there's a few nice looking facelifts around but I think the mean stealthy grey/black look makes it a bit different.

yeah i know the grills just clip out mate but its the chrome bit im stuck with how did you go about gettin it off? the same way you would if you were debadging? did it leave a hole? or was it just dirty?

I removed the whole grill piece, it made it a lot easier to access the clips holding the chrome bits on. I just used a flat screwdriver to prise apart the clips and then pulled the chrome bit off the main piece. No there weren't any holes left, just a little dirty but a quick wipe down should sort that.

 

[SK193]

After much trial and error, I finally got the steering wheel fitted. It took a few attempts to get it on right, as the boss was just short of fitting onto the spline. In the end the standard boss with the indicator cancellation pin on it was removed and the coil of wiring inside it was cut out and a new horn had to be wired up.

I also sprayed the top and bottom steering column covers black and the gearstick surround to match the other interior pieces.

I added a few more stickers to the back too, but some will probably be removed when I get a new spoiler fitted.

 

[SK193]

The latest addition to the interior thanks to a last minute bargain on ebay

£135 for the pair, in almost new condition, including mounting frames and postage

 

[davey1991]

Less coloring in more getting it on its bum!
Lol looks nice though.

 

[SK193]

Haha I would if I could, I really want 50 or 60mm springs but the price of them and insurance is what's stopping me at the moment

 

[SK193]

After much work, i've now got the new seats fitted. It wasn't quite as simple as I was hoping, the frames that came with the seats wouldn't fit them into the car very well so me and my dad decided to just take the subframes off the standard seats and modify them with new mounting brackets which meant I could also keep the standard ones too in case I ever want to put the standard seats back in. A few hours later we had the modified frames bolted up to the seats and got them fitted into the car perfectly


Out with the old:

And in with the new:

 

[SK193]

The next thing i'm planning on doing is getting some new wheels as i've wanted to change them for quite a while, but i'm a bit stuck on which ones to get/would look best. Any help & opinions would be greatly appreciated

Calibre Pro 7 - 15x6.5 et38

Wolfrace High Octane - 15x6.5 et35

Lenso Samurai Spec-C - 15x7 et38

Calibre Eclipse - 15x7 et38

I like them all but i'm not as sure about the Lensos as I am with the rest. Also, if I get the Eclipses I think i'd spray them as i'm not sure gold would suit my car, so I was thinking of either black and keep the polished lip or something like these..

This would then go with the blue on my interior


What do you guys think would look the best?